Alcohol and Addictions

Over the past month the one word that keeps popping up in my sessions is alcohol. This has come in a couple different forms but it has got me thinking about alcohol consumption along with other habits and addictions and what hypnotherapy can do to address and help these issues.

What is the difference between habits and addictions?

It is firstly very important to understand the difference between habits and addictions. Habits are a pattern or behaviour that is repeated many times; it can become typical of someone and can often be done without knowing it. Addictions on the other hand, are a state of physiological or psychological dependence to behaviour. If you feel like you are dealing with more of an addiction as opposed to a habit then please do see your doctor before you contact a hypnotherapist.

Alcohol and how can hypnotherapy help?

Whether it is an addiction or a habit, alcohol is a part of our culture and for some of us it can be a part of our everyday lives. If we are asked round to a friend’s house for dinner then we usually bring a bottle of wine and we also have our tremendous British pubs, perfect for the summer time when sitting in the garden with a beer is the perfect way to spend the evening. It is not uncommon for us to have a glass of wine with our dinner or a have a drink after a long day at work, none of this means we have an addiction, it just means that we are in the habit of drinking and sometimes that habit can get out of control, some people can easily stop after one glass but sometimes it can be harder for others to stop.

The way I which I work with hypnotherapy is to help you to find and understand what has caused you to develop this habit or addiction. A lot of the time we don’t know why we do the things we do – hypnotherapy is a very useful tool to help you discover those subconscious reasons behind our behaviours, so we can then do something to change these behaviours. It can be very hard to fix the symptoms when we ignore the problem, so by looking at the reasons behind the habit or addiction we can replace those unwanted behaviours with new behaviours that will be much more beneficial. Hypnotherapy cannot make you do anything that you do not want to do and is not a quick fix but it can be a very effective tool as we are bypassing the analytical conscious mind and getting into the subconscious mind, this is where all of our automatic behaviours are stored so we can in most cases see much quicker results.

The first client who started off this pattern of alcohol issues came to me to deal with some anxiety issues he was experiencing and he mentioned at the beginning of the sessions that his wife was drinking excessively and would often get out of control, we were addressing the anxiety and when we delved deeper into the reason he had developed these anxiety issues we came to realise that his anxiety was due to a lack of trust which made his feel very uneasy, and this lack of trust came from his wife’s excessive drinking. We worked with him and dealing with the feelings that he had but there was very little else we could do since it was an issue that his wife will have to address, and if the individual is not ready to break the habit and does not want to change – we could only focus on building up his confidence and helping him to manage his symptoms of anxiety.

Another client had a very similar issue with anxiety whose wife was also excessively drinking, during his time with me he found it extremely useful to take the time to really focus on himself and what he needed, he has gone on to make the changes he needs to in his life that he feels are necessary to help him and his own happiness. Again in this case the main focus was to really help my client deal with the feelings around his wife’s drinking and help him to focus on himself, make the decisions he needed to as well as helping him to regain confidence and deal with the emotions and feelings he had regarding the decisions he made during his time with me.

My final client is an ongoing client who doesn’t drink often but when he does he cannot seem to stop and will feel like he is out of control. He mentioned that he wants to be in control and that means not having the alcohol at all and being completely sober. So we have now developed some new behaviours and things for him to do instead of drinking in order to break the habit of starting to drink in the first place. We are moving on now to reinforcing these new behaviours and making sure the habit is completely broken. If he decided he still wanted to drink but wanted to get in control of it and be able to stop after one or two then we would have developed some new behaviour to help him to stop drinking once he had started and remain in control of his alcohol intake.

All of these clients have gone on to make really positive changes and each case is so different, but each client was able to focus on themselves and their personal goals, whether that was to stop altogether or realise that they need to take the time to focus on helping those around them to be better in control.

If you are in a position where you feel you want to make positive changes or you have a habit or addiction you no longer want to be a part of your life then maybe hypnotherapy can help you to get back in control? I am now doing free 30 minute consultations either via skype or phone which is a great opportunity for you to ask all the questions you need to ask and find out more about what hypnotherapy can do to help. So please use the details below to get in contact and book in for your consultation.